The Reuters Institute's South Africa Digital News Report 2019 was published on Wednesday, based on a survey of more than 2,000 online.• More than two-thirds (70%) are concerned about what is real and what is fake online.

1. Reuters Institute
Digital News Report 2019
South Africa Supplementary Report
Chris Roper, Nic Newman and Anne Schulz
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3. This publication is supported by
CHRIS ROPER, NIC NEWMAN AND ANNE SCHULZ
Reuters Institute
Digital News Report 2019
South Africa Supplementary Report
Surveyed by
The wider project is supported by
© Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism 2019
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4. Contents
Foreword 5
Methodology 6
Authorship and Research Acknowledgements 7
1. South Africa’s Media Scene 8
2. Journalism in South Africa 9
3. TV, Radio, and Print Consumption 10
4. Online News Consumption 11
5. Trust in the News 12
6. Social Media 13
7. Gateways, Pay, and Attitudes to News 14
8. Devices for Accessing News 15
Conclusion 16
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2019 South Africa Supplementary Report
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5. 5
The mission of the Reuters Institute is to explore the
future of journalism worldwide, and the inclusion of
South Africa in this year’s Digital News Report is an
important further step towards delivering on that
mission. With support from our many partners, our
report already has wide international reach (covering
38 markets in 2019), but this is the first year we have
been able to include a country in Africa.
This stand-alone report on South Africa supplements
the main Digital News Report and aims to go into greater
detail with the data in ways that we hope will be useful
for discussions of news and media as well as decision-
making in South Africa, where national elections have
just taken place in May and a new government is
being formed.
The media context for this period of political change,
our research suggests, is one of eroding trust in news
and where 70% of our South African respondents say
they struggle to separate fact from fiction online.
More encouragingly, we are also seeing important
investigative reporting, innovative journalism, and
journalistic collaborations, including ways in which
some South African journalists and media organisations
are fighting back against corruption, state capture, and
various forms of misinformation.
Despite numerous problems with outlets being
captured by powerful political and/or commercial
interests, embarrassing lapses in editorial oversight,
and instances where proprietors have used news media
to attack independent journalists, a majority of our
respondents still say that South African media help
hold politicians and businesses to account.
While limited in its focus to English-language South
African internet users, and thus not representative of
South Africa more widely, we hope this report can be
a first step towards contributing empirical insights on
news and media habits. As audiences turn to digital
media, where advertising tends to go to international
technology companies rather than local publishers,
intensifying the pressures on existing business models,
this is becoming especially important.
We are hugely grateful to all the different sponsors
and partners involved in the Digital News Report, and in
particular the Open Society Foundations whose support
made it possible to include South Africa. We are also
grateful to our polling company YouGov, who helped our
research team to analyse and contextualise the data.
Foreword
Professor Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ)
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6. Methodology
This study has been commissioned by the Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism to understand how news is
being consumed in a range of countries including South
Africa. Research was conducted by YouGov using an online
questionnaire at the end of January/beginning of
February 2019.
• Samples were assembled using nationally representative
quotas for age, gender, region.1
The data were also weighted
to targets based on census/industry accepted data. It
is important to note, however, that the survey is only
representative of the English-speaking population of South
Africa. English is the lingua franca in South Africa and the
main language of government and media, even though less
than 10% of South Africans speak it as a first language. In
this report we are not able to cover the richness of media
consumption in South Africa’s other ten official languages.
• As this survey deals with news consumption, we filtered
out anyone who said that they had not consumed any
news in the past month, in order to ensure that irrelevant
responses didn’t adversely affect data quality. This category
averaged around 3% and was 4% in South Africa.
• We should note that online samples will tend to under-
represent the consumption habits of people who are not
online (typically older, less affluent, and with limited formal
education). In this sense it is better to think of results as
representative of online populations which use news at
least once a month. In South Africa this is just over 50% of
the overall population, though the proportion is likely to
be higher with English speakers. In some other countries
in our survey this figure can reach 99%. These differences
mean we need to be cautious when comparing results
between South Africa and other countries.
• It is also important to note that online surveys rely on
recall, which is often imperfect or subject to biases.
We have tried to mitigate these risks through careful
questionnaire design and testing. On the other hand,
surveys are a good way of capturing fragmented media
consumption across platforms (e.g. social media,
messaging, apps, and websites), and tracking activities and
changes over time.
• A fuller description of the methodology, panel partners,
and a discussion of non-probability sampling techniques
can be found on our website along with the full
questionnaire (digitalnewsreport.org).
1
Education quotas were also applied in the majority of countries though it was not possible to do this is in South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Greece, and Turkey. These samples will have a higher proportion of highly educated people than the general population.
Country
Final
sample size
Internet
penetration
Africa
South Africa * 2009 54%
Europe
UK 2023 95%
Austria 2010 88%
Belgium 2008 94%
Bulgaria * 2018 66%
Croatia 2009 91%
Czech Republic 2023 88%
Denmark 2011 97%
Finland 2009 94%
France 2005 93%
Germany 2022 96%
Greece 2018 70%
Hungary 2007 89%
Ireland 2013 93%
Italy 2006 92%
Netherlands 2026 96%
Norway 2013 99%
Poland 2009 78%
Portugal 2010 78%
Romania 2004 74%
Slovakia 2045 85%
Spain 2005 93%
Sweden 2007 97%
Switzerland 2003 91%
Turkey * 2074 68%
Americas
USA 2012 96%
Argentina 2006 93%
Brazil * 2013 71%
Canada 2055 90%
Chile 2004 78%
Mexico * 2015 65%
Asia Pacific
Australia 2010 88%
Hong Kong 2056 87%
Japan 2017 93%
Malaysia * 2101 78%
Singapore 2033 84%
South Korea 2035 93%
Taiwan 1005 88%
Source: Internet World Stats (http://www.internetworldstats.com). Please note that in Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Greece, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey our samples tend to be based more around
urban areas, which should be taken into consideration when interpreting results. * These
countries have lower internet penetration so results may not be comparable for some measures.
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7. AuthorshipandResearch
Acknowledgements
Chris Roper is chief engagement strategist and deputy CEO for
Code for Africa, and a director of the African Network of Centres for
Investigative Reporting. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Mail
Guardian in South Africa, and of Africa’s largest publisher 24.com.
Nic Newman is Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism. He has been lead author of the
Digital News Report since 2012 and writes an annual report on
future media and technology trends. Previously, Nic was a senior
executive with the BBC and part of the team that launched the
BBC News website.
Anne Schulz is a Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the
Study of Journalism. Her doctoral work focused on populism,
media perceptions, and media consumption. She is interested in
questions surrounding news audiences and digital news.
The authors are grateful to the Open Society Foundations whose
support made it possible to include South Africa, as well as to our
polling company YouGov. The analysis and presentation has been
conducted independently by the Reuters Institute for the Study
of Journalism. Our work on this report has benefited from the
advice and input of the wider Reuters Institute research team, in
particular Richard Fletcher and Antonis Kalogeropoulos, two of the
authors of the main annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
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8. 1.SouthAfrica’s
MediaScene
With 2019 an election year in South Africa, the country’s
media have been invigorated by the ending of ex-president
Jacob Zuma’s years of corrupt misrule and the ‘New
Dawn’ promised by his successor Cyril Ramaphosa. High-
profile investigative journalism played a significant role
in this change, burnishing, to some extent, the image of
journalism among citizens. News24, Daily Maverick, and the
amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism were some
of the many news outlets that helped uncover the corrupt
relationship between former president Jacob Zuma and the
Guptas, a family implicated in the process that South Africans
are terming ‘state capture’ (the systematic misuse of state
funds for personal enrichment, which some sources are
quantifying as R1.5 trillion over the last four years).2
The economic situation has not been as positive, with several
rounds of retrenchments at most large media houses. Tiso
Blackstar, one of the country’s biggest media companies,
whose titles include the Sunday Times and Business Day, shut
down their tabloid newspaper Sunday World, and announced
that they were retrenching staff across publications including
the Sowetan, Business Day, The Herald, and Daily Dispatch.
Media24 closed down its local version of the Huffington
Post after only 18 months, and the independent Afro Voice
newspaper (the rebranded successor of the politically
compromised The New Age) closed after less than 12 months
of existence. The national broadcaster, SABC, said in late 2018
that it was going to cut its number of permanent employees
by 981, and freelancers by 1,200. Pushback from trade unions
has led it to abandon this process, but it’s uncertain how
viable this position is, given that the organisation has required
billions of rands in government bailouts to continue operating.
The South African Editors Forum (SANEF) has expressed
concern about the implications of ‘declining numbers of
media institutions, publications and the shrinking numbers
of journalists’3
for both independent reporting and the quality
of public debate. A more optimistic note was struck with the
launch of Newzroom Afrika, a new 24-hour news channel
taking the place of the disgraced ANN7, a news channel
previously owned by the Guptas and forced to close for
political and economic reasons.
The past year also saw 28 media companies, including the
SABC, Tiso Blackstar, Media24, and the Mail Guardian,
ordered to pay fines of varying amounts after being found
guilty of anti-competitive behaviour for colluding on offering
discounts and payment terms to advertising agencies.4
2
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-01-state-capture-wipes-out-third-of-sas-r4-9-trillion-gdp-never-mind-lost-trust-confidence-opportunity/
3
https://sanef.org.za/sanef-perturbed-by-job-losses-in-the-media-industry/
4
https://mg.co.za/article/2019-01-04-00-who-runs-sas-media-is-a-black-and-white-issue
POPULATION BY LANGUAGE MOST SPOKEN
AT HOME
INTEREST IN NEWS
STATISTICS
Population 57m
Internet penetration 54%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
EnglishSetswanaSepediAfrikaansisiXhosaisiZulu
24
17
12
9 9
8
Note. 21% speak other languages. Data via Statistics South Africa 2016: https://wazimap.co.za/
profiles/country-ZA-south-africa/
26% Extremely interested
39% Very interested
29% Somewhat interested
6% Not very and not at all
interested
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9. Country Global Position African Position
Namibia 23 1
Ghana 27 2
South Africa 31 3
Burkina Faso 36 4
2.JournalisminSouthAfrica
South Africa enjoys a high level of press freedom, ranking 31 on
the World Press Freedom Index, but this position is threatened
by a number of recent attacks on independent journalism.
This has included the harassment of journalists, and especially
female journalists, both online and in physical political fora.
Perhaps the most egregious recent example was the publishing
of a journalist’s mobile number on Twitter by the leader of the
populist Economic Freedom Fighters party, which led to threats
of violence and death.5
A recent report by NGO Right2Know revealed that journalists,
and especially those working on state capture, corruption, and
mismanagement of state security agencies, were targets of
state and private-sector spying.6
The large Independent Media group, whose owner has
repeatedly dictated the editorial line of his publications,7
ran a
crude series of front-page stories in its papers, labelling some of
South Africa’s most prominent journalists as ‘Stratcom agents’
– a reference to an apartheid era government propaganda
agency. SANEF condemned this attack on respected journalists
as ‘disgusting and unacceptable’.8
In a sense, this growing animosity towards independent
journalists is a response to the effective investigative work
that has been done on stories that dominated the headlines.
These ranged from investigations into business corruption, as
with the Steinhoff collapse and Regiments Capital illegalities,
and the exposure of the myriad tentacles of state capture and
government corruption.
A welcome innovation, especially given that transparency
helps to dispel accusations of a ‘media agenda’, has been a rise
in reputable news outlets being transparent about how their
evidence-based reporting works. AmaBhungane, for example,
have created an Open Newsroom, where they list stories they
are working on, and they also make their evidence dossiers
available. There is still a lot of work to be done to introduce
more diversity into journalism coverage, and the emphasis on
the big stories means that limited attention is paid to more
localised investigations.
5
https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-07-what-the-eff-malema-what-about-democracy
6
https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/state-security-agencies-and-private-sector-spied-on-journalists-right2know-20180704
7
https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2019/04/15/media-capture-iqbal-surve
8
https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sanef-slams-independent-media-groups-stratcom-smear-of-journalists-20180420
SOUTH AFRICA’S POSTION IN PRESS FREEDOM 2019
Note. Data via Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index 2019: https://rsf.org/en/ranking.
AmaBhungane have created an Open Newsroom
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10. 3.TV,Radio,andPrint
Consumption
Consumption of news in print continues its steady drop into
the abyss. Figures for Q1 2019 show newspaper circulation
declining by 5% year on year. Daily newspapers were the
biggest losers, with a 10.5% drop, but weekly newspapers were
almost as badly affected, with a 7.9% decline year on year.
It’s an even starker picture when we look at newspapers with
the biggest losses: the weeklies Sunday Sun (-28%) and City
Press (-21%), and dailies Daily Dispatch and Son (-18% each).9
Data for the last ten years show a 49% drop in circulation
for newspapers. No newspapers have a convincing route out
of the print mire into a sustainable digital future. Attempts
at paywalls and subscription models by the likes of Mail
Guardian and Business Day appear to show disappointing
numbers, while most digital advertising revenue is still largely
going to the big social media and search platforms.
Television news is experiencing something of a shake-up
with Newzroom Afrika entering the market and the national
broadcaster, the SABC, tightening its editorial standards
under a new board chosen to oversee a decisive break from
the mismanagement of the last few years. The SABC news
channels are first on our survey’s top offline brand list in
terms of reach.
The majority of the biggest radio stations tend to be those
with programming in indigenous languages, like the isiZulu-
language Ukhozi FM and the isiXhosa-language Umhlobo
Wenene (numbers one and two respectively). South Africa’s
community radio sector is large, with over 200 stations and
a weekly listenership of around 8.3m people – 25% of radio’s
regular adult audience. This is in some ways a corrective to
the lack of local journalism by national news organisations
who tend to focus on the big issue stories. The reach enjoyed
by community radio stations doesn’t always translate into
revenue and expansion, though, and many lack skills
and resources.
9
http://www.marklives.com/2019/05/daily-newspaper-circulation-fell-by-10-yoy-abc-q1-2019/
0% 25% 50% 75%
Cape Argus
Son
Cape Times
Other from outside South Africa*
Daily Dispatch
PowerFM
CNBC Africa
Die Burger
Business Day
The Mercury
Isolezwe
Ukhozi FM
Beeld
Rapport
Mail Guardian
The Star
702/Cape Talk
SAFM
City Press
The Citizen
Sowetan
A community newspaper
Daily Sun
A regional or local newspaper
The Sunday Times
CNN
BBC News
SABC radio
Local radio news
eNCA
SABC News (incl SABC 1,2,3) 50
38
30
29
25
25
25
21
21
15
13
12
12
12
10
10
10
9
9
8
7
7
6
6
5
5
5
5
4
4
3
* Other newspapers
or broadcast news
channels from outside
South Africa
Weekly use
% Weekly usage
At least 3 days per week
Q5a/Q5ai. Which of the following brands have you used to access news OFFLINE in the
last week?/Which of these, if any, did you use on 3 days or more? Base: South Africa = 2009.
RADIO, TV, AND PRINT CONSUMPTION –
WEEKLY REACH
SABC NEWS REACH
Radio
44%
TV
68%
Print
40%
SOURCE OF NEWS OFFLINE
Total reach
TV and radio
60%
24-hour channel Newzroom Afrika launched in May 2019 (Inauguration coverage)
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11. 4.OnlineNewsConsumption–
WeeklyReach
South Africa has one of the most diverse and independent
digital news sectors in Africa. The online news space is
dominated by a digital-only brand, News24. This success is
partly a consequence of its parent company’s early adoption
of the potential of the internet and prescient attention to
mobile delivery platforms, but also a testament to News24’s
focus on making news that is designed for digital consumption
timelines and attention spans. 70% of our English-speaking
sample access News24 online at least once a week – one of
the highest reach levels seen anywhere in our global survey.
Eleven of the top 15 local sites measured by IAB South Africa
are news sites, but this healthy penetration doesn’t translate
into significant digital revenue.
There are a number of small, fiercely independent digital-only
players, like Daily Maverick, Daily Vox, GroundUp, New Frame,
and amaBhungane, which rely on some combination of donors
and crowdfunding. AmaBhungane has been particularly
successful when it comes to crowdfunding, with it listed
as the single biggest source of revenue in 2017 and 2018.
0% 25% 50% 75%
70
45
28
19
19
19
15
15
15
14
13
13
13
13
11
11
10
9
8
7
6
6
6
6
5
CliffCentral
Vice News
Other sites from outside South Africa
thesouthafrican.com
New York Times online
Guardian online
BusinessLive (Business Day site)
Mail online
Al-Jazeera online
BuzzFeed News
Daily Maverick
HuffPost (Huffington Post)
SowetanLive
Yahoo! News
MyBroadband
City Press
The Citizen
IOL
Mail Guardian
TimesLive
EWN (Eyewitness News)
Other regional or local newspaper website
Netwerk24
CNN.com
Daily Sun
BBC News online
ENCA
SABC News
News24 70
45
28
19
19
19
15
15
15
14
13
13
13
13
11
11
10
9
8
7
6
6
6
6
5
4
3
3
2
Weekly use
% Weekly usage
At least 3 days per week
Q5b/Q5bi. Which of the following brands have you used to access news ONLINE in the last
week?/Which of these, if any, did you use on 3 days or more? Base: South Africa = 2009.
ONLINE NEWS CONSUMPTION – WEEKLY REACH
Digital first brand
– expanding
across Africa
SOURCE OF NEWS ONLINE
Social media
72%
Online (incl. social media)
90%
Blogs
13%
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12. 5.TrustintheNews
10
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-18-jeff-bezos-and-iqbal-surve-the-amazon-and-the-amazing-ego/
11
https://www.real411.org/learn
DIFFERENT TYPES OF TRUST
News I use
54%
News in social
28%
News overall
49%
10th/38 countries
News in search
43%
7.70
7.31
7.16
7.09
7.01
6.93
6.84
6.50
6.45
6.41
6.16
6.02
5.38Daily Sun
Sowetan
Daily Maverick
The Star
Cape Times
City Press
EWN (Eyewitness News)
Sunday Times
Mail Guardian
SABC News
Business Day
eNCA
News24 7.91
7.98
7.78
7.66
7.69
7.39
7.74
7.65
6.96
7.41
7.50
7.30
6.34
NEWS BRAND TRUST SCORES (0 – 10)
Aware of the brand Users of the brand
CONCERN ABOUT MISINFORMATION
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
85
75
70
70
68
68
67
67
67
64
63
62
62
62
62
61
61
61
59
54
54
52
52
52
51
49
47
45
44
44
43
41
40
39
39
38
37
31NLD
SVK
GER
DEN
NOR
AUT
CZE
POL
SUI
BEL
HK
SWE
HUN
JPN
FIN
ITA
BGR
CRO
TWN
KOR
IRE
GRE
CAN
AUS
SGP
ROU
ARG
TUR
MYS
FRA
USA
CHL
SPA
MEX
UK
ZAF
POR
BRA
mismanagement. On the positive side, it appears to be turning
a corner with the appointment of a new, relatively apolitical
board.
The website News24 has a strong reputation for trust built on
the back of investments in breaking news. Tabloid newspaper
the Daily Sun is widely used but less well trusted.
Despite relatively high overall news trust scores, almost
three-quarters (70%) of our South African sample say they
struggle to separate fact from fiction online – one of the highest
figures in our international survey. In the run up to the general
election in May, misinformation on social media exploded,
with news brands becoming targets as well as sometimes
unwitting amplifiers. There has been a growth in organisations
training media and civil society to combat misinformation, and
platforms such as Google and Twitter also allocated resources
to help. Meanwhile the Independent Electoral Commission
partnered with the NGO Media Monitoring Africa to produce a
system for reporting misinformation.11
There is a strong tradition of highly trusted, independent media
in South Africa, but this is increasingly under threat. Trust is
being eroded by a combination of unethical business practices,
shoddy journalism, and escalating misinformation affecting
critical national elections.
The Sunday Times weekly newspaper, long one of the country’s
most trusted news brands, was forced to apologise for lapses in
journalistic rigour and the publication of several false scoops,
and had some of its journalism awards withdrawn. Despite this,
it still sits at number 6 on the list of trusted news brands.
Meanwhile Independent Media, one of the country’s largest
media groups, has had the integrity of its news products
severely compromised by its owner’s interference in editorial
policy, as well as its inability to pay back a questionably
acquired loan of over R1 billion to SA’s Public Investment
Corporation.10
The state broadcaster, the SABC, is only the fourth most-
trusted brand, as a result of a protracted and damaging period
of government interference and near-catastrophic financial
Q_FAKE_NEWS_1. Please
indicate your level of
agreement with the
following statement. –
Thinking about online
news, I am concerned
about what is real and
what is fake on the
internet. Base: Total sample
in each market ≈ 2000,
Taiwan = 1005. For more
information about sample
sizes of other countries, see
Reuters Institute Digital
News Report 2019.
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13. 6.SocialMedia
South Africans are some of the heaviest users of social media
and messaging in the world. In terms of general use, almost
nine in ten (88%) use WhatsApp weekly, with eight in ten
(80%) using Facebook. South Africa is the only country in our
survey where WhatsApp users outnumber Facebook users, and
the private nature of these networks has often made it harder
to spot and counter political or other types of misinformation.
AfricaCheck has started a new initiative to identify false and
bogus claims and distribute fact-checks via voice notes, which
can be easily shared in WhatsApp.
South Africans love to share news, with 36% using messenger
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
59
35
14
20
11
7
80
73
41
34
33
31
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Facebook
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
49
14
2
3
2
88
48
11
8
6
WeChat
Telegram
Snapchat
Facebook
Messenger
WhatsApp
SOCIAL NETWORKS WEEKLY REACH MESSAGING APPS WEEKLY REACH
77%
use any social
network for news
53%
use any messaging
app for news
95%
use a Facebook
owned app weekly
39%
COMMENT ON NEWS
via social or website
36%
SHARE NEWS
via messaging
40%
SHARE NEWS
via social (Facebook Twitter)
+12
+47
+21
-5
-26
MORE TIME/LESS TIME SPENT WITH APPS IN THE LAST YEAR
apps and 40% using social networks like Facebook. Almost
four in ten (39%) comment on news via social media or via
news websites.
The reliance on these networks has also increased in the last
year. Over half our respondents (55%) say they have spent
more time with WhatsApp, with only 8% spending less time
(net +47). The equivalent figure for Facebook is +21 and
for Instagram +12. By contrast South Africans say they are
spending less time with Facebook Messenger (-5) and with
Snapchat (-26).
Q12C_2019. You say you use the following social networks for any purpose, in
the last 12 months, has the amount of time you spend using them changed?
Base: Facebook = 662/314, YouTube = 676/239, WhatsApp = 977/139, Instagram =
319/224, Snapchat = 49/107, Twitter = 253/175. Note: Showing difference between
proportion that said ‘more time’ and proportion who said ‘less time’.
Any purpose
For news
Any purpose
For news
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14. 7.Gateways,Pay,andAttitudes
toNews
GATEWAYS
South African’s preference for social media is also evident
when looking at the main gateways to news. A third (33%)
say they prefer to come across news via social media, ahead
of direct access (28%) through a news website or app. Taken
together, 71% of South Africans use a side-door access to news.
Combining those relying on social media, search and some
mobile news aggregators, more than half (56%) tend to see
stories that are selected by algorithms rather than editors.
South Africa lies somewhere between the direct access model
we find in Norway and the distributed model found in South
Korea where the majority prefer to access news through
home-grown search engines and web portals.
12
https://themediaonline.co.za/2018/03/gloomy-picture-for-tv-and-radio-
advertising-spend-in-sa/
PREFERRED GATEWAYS TO NEWS
South Africa
Norway
South Korea
71% side-door access
0%
25%
50%
75%
28
19
33
7 8
4
AggregatorMobile
alerts
EmailSocial
media
SearchDirect
0%
25%
50%
75%
61
12 13 2 4
6
AggregatorMobile
alerts
EmailSocial
media
SearchDirect
37% side-door access
0%
25%
50%
75%
4
48
9 3
7
27
AggregatorMobile
alerts
EmailSocial
media
SearchDirect
94% side-door access
Q10a_new2017_rc. Which of these was the MAIN way in which you came across news in the
last week? Base: South Africa = 1958, Norway = 1830, South Korea = 1927.
Helps me understand
the news
63%
Monitors and scrutinises powerful
people and businesses
53%
Keeps me
up to date
73%
Takes too negative a
view of events
47%
Agenda feels
irrelevant
28%
PAY
Despite relatively high trust levels in the news overall,
revenue for news media has been on a downward path
for several years, with a 12% drop in ad spend last year for
television, 5.6% for radio, and 7.7% for print.12
Although 16%
of respondents claim they pay for online news, this figure
will not be representative of South Africans as a whole,
given our urban and highly educated online sample. The
surge of goodwill engendered by the media’s role in exposing
the Guptas has led to an upswing in reader donations to
independent publications like Daily Maverick and the
investigative unit amaBhungane. But this is an uncertain
form of income, and with no
sustainable revenue model
available currently, South
African media houses are
facing a grim future.
ATTITUDES TO NEWS MEDIA
South African news media are considered to do a relatively
good job in keeping people up to date (73% compared with
an all country average of 62%), as well as helping people
understand the news (63% compared with an average of
51%). More than half of our sample say that the news does a
good job in monitoring and scrutinising powerful people and
businesses (53% compared with an average of just 42%).
16%PAY
(11th/38) pay for
ONLINE NEWS
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2019 South Africa Supplementary Report
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15. 8.DevicesforAccessingNews
The smartphone is the most popular device for accessing
news among South Africans. More than three-quarters (76%)
use this for news each week, with the majority (58%) saying
smartphones are their main device. South Africans are much
more likely to use cheaper Android smartphones (83%) than
Apple devices (15%), compared with many European countries.
For very few, some older feature phones (2%) also provide
basic access to the internet. Smartphones are most popular
amongst younger news consumers, with older South Africans
still showing a preference for computers. Tablets are less
popular than in many other countries, with only 6% using
these devices for news weekly.
WEEKLY REACH FOR NEWS
Smartphone
76%
58% main device
Computer
58%
30% main device
Tablet
19%
6% main device
43%
have listened to
a podcast in
the last month
PHONE TYPEPREFERRED DEVICE BY AGE
OFFSITE VS ONSITE NEWS VIDEO CONSUMPTION
TYPE OF PODCAST LISTENED TO MONTHLY
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+
Younger groups more likely
to use smartphones
Older groups more likely
to use computer or tablet
Android
83%
Apple
15%
Non-Smartphone
2%0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
35
8
50
54
9
33
61
5
29
64
6
26
74
4 13
ComputerTabletSmartphone
0%
25%
50%
20 19
12
19
15
Crime/
society
Lifestyle
e.g. music/travel
SportSpecialist
e.g. business
News and
politics
UK8b6_5. You’ve said you use the following devices to access news in the last week, which is your MAIN way of accessing online
news? Base: 18-24/25-34/35-44/45-54/55+: South Africa = 357/564/403/224/359.
Q11_VIDEO_2018a. Thinking about consuming online news video (of any kind) over the last
week, which of the following did you do? Base: Total sample: South Africa = 2009.
0%
25%
50%
75%
22
35
70
Consumed
news-related
Consumed
news-related
video onsite
Consumed no
news-related
videos in the
last week
Facebook 42%
Others 34%
YouTube 36%
Due to overlaps, figures
do not add up to 70
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16. Conclusion
The news media in South Africa are in something of an
interregnum. Interest in news, and more importantly, news
that drives change in political and institutional policymaking,
is at a high. With this comes an amplified scrutiny of
journalism, with mistakes being seized on by people (from
all parts of the political and business spectrum) intent on
destabilising trust in the media. This increased oversight is an
overwhelmingly positive thing, serving as it does to make the
media more accountable. But it does provide fertile fodder
for those eager to adapt the Trumpian ‘fake news’ strategy for
local conditions, and for the bot farms that have already been
deployed around some of the big news stories, such as the
Gupta leaks.
The most troubling statistics in this survey, perhaps, are that
overall trust in the news in South Africa is 49% (10th place in
our 38 country survey), but also that almost three-quarters
(70%) of our respondents say they struggle to separate
fact from fiction online – one of the highest figures in our
international survey. These two statistics can’t comfortably
exist side by side for long, and fighting disinformation and
misinformation is going to be a critical if South African
journalism wants to maintain its authority and impact.
Trust in media isn’t just a factor in maintaining the press’s
role as an effective watchdog. It also speaks to the other
major issue, the question of revenue. With newspaper
circulation dying, broadcast revenue dropping, and journalism
resources eroding, news is going to have to increasingly rely
on subscription and membership models to sustain volume
and quality. The imperative right now, in an environment in
which this survey shows that 71% of South Africans use a
side-door access to news, and where the social media and
other technology giants are consuming the majority of digital
revenue, is going to be rebuilding the ties between those that
produce news and those who use it, and taking advantage of
the digital world’s sometime elision of those two.
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2019 South Africa Supplementary Report
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17. Nic Newman with Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos,
and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019 (June 2019)
Felix M. Simon and Lucas Graves
Pay Models for Online News in the US and Europe: 2019 Update
(May 2019)
Joy Jenkins and Lucas Graves
Case Studies in Collaborative Local Journalism (Apr. 2019)
Julie Posetti with Felix Simon and Nabeelah Shabbir
Lessons in Innovation: How International News Organisations
Combat Disinformation through Mission-Driven Journalism
(Apr. 2019)
Zeenab Aneez, Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Antonis
Kalogeropoulos, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
India Digital News Report (Mar. 2019)
Nic Newman
Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions 2019
(Jan. 2019)
J. Scott Brennen, Philip N. Howard, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
An Industry-Led Debate: How UK Media Cover Artificial Intelligence
(Dec. 2018)
Tom Nicholls, Nabeelah Shabbir, Lucas Graves, and
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Coming of Age: Developments in Digital-Born News Media
in Europe (Dec. 2018)
Nic Newman
The Future of Voice and the Implications for News (Nov. 2018)
Antonis Kalogeropoulos and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Social Inequalities in News Consumption (Oct. 2018)
Alessio Cornia, Annika Sehl, David A. L. Levy, and
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Private Sector News, Social Media Distribution, and
Algorithm Change (Sept. 2018)
Jason Vir, Kathryn Hall (Kantar Media)
News in Social Media and Messaging Apps (Sept. 2018)
Lucas Graves
Understanding the Promise and Limits of Automated
Fact-Checking (Feb. 2018)
SelectedRISJPublications
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18. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
e: reuters.institute@politics.ox.ac.uk
w: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk
w: www.digitalnewsreport.org
9 781907 384639
ISBN 978-1-907384-63-9
Surveyed by
The wider project is supported by
This publication is supported by
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